


Unsatisfactory Ends

by Wix



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sokovia Accords, Team Iron Man, not team Cap friendly, pre-WinterIron if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 10:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21354607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wix/pseuds/Wix
Summary: None of this played out the way that Steve thought it would.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Avengers Team
Comments: 131
Kudos: 3369
Collections: Best Team Iron Man, Tony Cinematic Universe One-Shots, Tony Stark Defense Squad I





	Unsatisfactory Ends

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently the way to get me to write is to make it NANO and have me want to avoid adding to the novel I'm supposed to be writing. 
> 
> Oh well. Just another Salty - Anti Steve story complete with some Bucky and Tony friendship. Some of the best kinds of fics there are. (Minus Winteriron, but this could be seen as pre-Winteriron if you wanted to so there's that)

The future tends to move at a quick pace, but even Steve has to say that this is ridiculous. It’s only been six months since Siberia and the end of the media coined ‘Civil War’ between the Avengers. Six months of sitting in Wakanda and waiting every day for something to happen so that they could come home. Six months of being assured and promised by various people that he ‘only needed to be patient’ and the end result would come soon enough.

Six months of watching the world pass them by and move on from a television screen. Six months of watching Tony from afar and being ignored by the billionaire on all fronts. He sent him a letter explaining himself to Tony and a phone, but he only ever got one reply in those six months after spamming the cellphone’s number at least twice an hour for over two weeks. A simple message of ‘Go Fuck Yourself Rogers, I’m burning this damn phone.’ from the other and nothing since. Natasha told Steve that she tried to meet up with Tony, sought him out at one of those little coffee shops that he likes to go to and supposedly he looked her right in the eye as he pulled out his phone and dialed the FBI to let them know that one of the people on their most wanted list was currently in town and sitting right in front of him.

Steve tried to point out how it had to be a good thing, even with Tony’s little display because the brunet never tried to arrest her or restrain her as he put in the call or after it. According to Natasha though he said he didn’t have ‘the authority to act’ and went on humming ‘the itsy bitsy spider’ in various annoying ways including one where FRIDAY apparently added a guitar riff from his phone while doing some work on his tablet for the rest of the time that she could spare to be there.

There was only one point in time when Tony really acted out against them, and it was closer to the beginning when he first got out of the hospital and the first interview where people asked him if he knew where Steve and his team were. He looked right at the camera and said things along the lines of ‘he’d hate to cause a diplomatic incident’ and ‘international borders and their sovereignty, isn’t that what started this all?’ and other phrases that seemed like he wasn’t going to tell – but the whole time he was talking, FRIDAY put up a picture of Wakanda on the map that zoomed in on the country with each statement and started getting flashing arrows pointing to it on the screen behind him.

That of course led the rest of the world to look closer into all the flight data and information that could be found and they start to see the patterns that Tony’s laid out for them to find and they start demanding that T’Challa and the Wakandan’s release the Rogue Avengers to them. It’s a tense few months, but eventually Tony’s plan backfires because T’Challa manages to pave the way for them to come home with the help of some other weapons designer named Hammer. The man even offers to make Steve and his team some new equipment if Tony proves to be stingy with his toys when they return. Natasha tells him not to take Hammer up on it, apparently Hammer’s good at the cheap and the tried-and-true, but when it comes to innovation the man misses the mark every single time.

The Compound is a mystery to Steve and the others when they arrive. It’s been overtaken by the Accord’s staff, which means that a lot of it has been gutted of the Stark Tech that once lined every wall. It’s not really meant to be anything but an embassy and short term living arrangements for Avengers members and even though Steve knows that Tony’s no longer in charge of it, he can still feel the brunet spitting on them when they have to make their stuff fit in a single locker and share rooms with several bunks. It’s the only place that they can stay for now though, since a lot of their pardons are conditional according to behavior and for a short while they’re on glorified house arrest. Steve hadn’t really thought anything of it when he was told that they were going to be serving their time at the Compound, but that had been before he saw this new Compound and its lack of really anything comfort related like the previous incarnation had.

Bucky practically gets shuttled off into the labs the minute he lands, and Steve’s hard pressed to not go punching through doors when they don’t let him in too. Tony’s apparently required that no unnecessary outside forces are to be present during the BARF treatments and Nat has to talk Steve down multiple times about how Tony wouldn’t try anything with so many people standing over his shoulder and looking over the numbers. Steve believes her, until he talks to Bucky the first time.

_“Do the other scientists run the tests too?” Steve asks and Bucky gives him a look. _

_“Nah. Only Tony knows how to run B.A.R.F.” Bucky replies. “He’s usually the only one in the red zone with me.” _

_“Only Tony?” Steve practically exclaims. “Tony shouldn’t be working on you alone! Without supervision! You should have told me! I would have come down.” _

_“Do you know anything about technology?” Bucky asks him with an arched eyebrow and he snorts when he doesn’t get an answer. “Then no offense, but what good would you actually be down there Stevie? Other than stressing Tony out.” _

_“Surprised you’re calling him ‘Tony’.” Nat says, looking at Bucky and Bucky gives her a confused look. _

_“What else would I call him? That’s his name.” _

_“He likes to go by Stark most of the time.” She says and Bucky gives her a look like he thinks she’s pulling his leg until he realizes that she’s serious and shakes his head. _

_“No, he hates that. Reminds him too much of his old man, which is never a good route to go. He prefers Tony, and I prefer to call him whatever the fuck he wants to be called.” _

_“He told you that?” She asks, surprised and he snorts. _

_“He didn’t have to. All it takes is a working pair of eyes and a little attention and anyone would fuckin notice that.” _

The idea bothers Steve later that night. Howard was a good man, a great man. He did many great things and more than that, he was Steve’s friend. It’s horrible that Tony seems so determined to distance himself from the man who made him. The man who technically made everything that Tony would ever go on to do possible. Howard built the future that Tony worships at the altar of and yet every time Tony seems to get a chance, he tries to outshine Howard or bury him in the past. It’s not right.

Steve makes the mistake of mentioning that to Bucky when they’re training and the other man actually freezes as he looks at Steve.

“That’s odd hearing you defend Howard.” Bucky says eventually, pulling his one hand up to his mouth and unraveling the tape, signaling the end of their session. “Considering your own history with your old man.”

“It’s nothing alike.” Steve snaps and Bucky just gives him a look that seems vaguely…disappointed.

“Stevie, it’s so alike that I couldn’t be pressed to find ways that they weren’t.” Bucky says before he grabs his water bottle and walks out of the exercise room. He leaves Steve there, feeling unmoored. Eventually the feeling sends Steve to Nat to inquire about Howard.

_“Everyone knew he was a volatile drunk, and that he resented Tony and Tony’s abilities.” Nat says with a shrug. “Everyone knows he was probably crossing the line every now and then but there was never any witnesses and Tony never spoke up. So who knows. It’s just speculation at this point. Money and power can make a lot of people look anywhere else in order to keep it all flowing.” _

Speculation isn’t proof, and Steve knows a thing or two about what a broken family under a drunk patriarch looks like and he’s never gotten that feeling from Tony. Besides, if Howard was such a terrible father to him then why did Tony care so much when it was revealed what Hydra had the Winter Soldier do? None of that adds up as far as Steve’s concerned. Howard was a good man, a great man, and his son could learn to take a few pages out of his book.

He still hasn’t seen hide nor hair of the brunet despite being back for almost a month and eventually Steve presses Rhodes and the Accord’s Council for a team building night. He’s surprised when it comes back accepted by Tony’s party so quickly and he makes sure to put on his best shirt and put forth his best foot when it comes to the first meeting between the two of them since Siberia. Steve always knew that Tony wasn’t going to be able to avoid him forever, and now is as good a time as any to start mending those bridges that Tony broke.

The ‘Team Building Night’ ends up being at a movie theater where Tony’s rented out the entire space for them and has put up a movie called ‘The Princess Bride’. For a moment Steve almost expects unicorns and some other stupid stuff to show up on screen as a passive aggressive taunt from Tony to them. It doesn’t happen though; he also doesn’t manage to sit next to Tony. Instead Rhodes sits on one side and Bucky on the other, and it feels like some kind of barrier between them. When Clint tries to sit behind them, Bucky throws a practical fit about him not liking people in his blind spot and Steve eventually gets Clint to move even though he knows that Clint had been muttering about looking forward to kicking Tony’s seat all movie long. Harmless pranking, but not something Steve’s going to allow if it upsets Bucky. As weird as it is, for a moment Steve could swear that Bucky and Tony share some kind of secret glance between the two of them before the lights go out and the film starts.

It's an overall enjoyable film, much to Steve surprise, and he’s even more surprised with how much Rhodes and Tony quote the entire thing during it. It’s perfect timing of course that scuttles Tony out of the area though once the credits start to roll and Potts sends him a message saying that he needs to come ASAP, making it to where Tony’s not able to go out with them to get pizza and _talk_ like Steve wanted. Rhodes comes along with them though, even though he spends most of the time debating some sort of book review with Bucky.

“What were you two talking about?” Steve asks that night and Bucky gives him a confused look.

“Who and when?”

“You and Rhodes, at the pizza place.”

“Oh, I just read ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’.” Bucky replies. “Tony lent it to me. Said it was a good read and that I should always read the book before I see the movie.”

“Tony’s giving you books now?” Steve asks, feeling a small amount of betrayal for some reason and Bucky just nods like it’s nothing.

“Yeah. Well, sorta. He’s given me a few things to ‘catch up on’. Said he gave you a similar list once upon a time. How far did you get through it?” Bucky’s question makes Steve think back to some of the first interactions with the brunet, and he does remember Tony giving him a list of things that he should catch up on but Steve can’t remember what he did with it. He might have thrown it away, but he knows that he didn’t take the time to really go through it. Let alone watch or read anything on it.

“None.” Steve admits and Bucky gives him that look again.

“Why not?”

“Just didn’t seem important.”

“Why not?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why didn’t it seem important?”

“I don’t know, it just didn’t.”

“Because Tony gave it to you?” Bucky asks and Steve gives him a look.

“What kind of question is that?”

“One you should be able to answer easily.” Bucky retorts and Steve puffs up a little.

“I was a little busy and overwhelmed when I first woke up Buck. Throwing movies at me wasn’t the way to get me up to speed.”

“Did you ever get up to speed though?” Bucky asks and Steve gives him an amused look.

“Obviously. I can catch up without watching movies Buck.”

“Sure, tell me real quick. What did you do?”

“What?”

“What did you do to catch up?”

“SHIELD took care of it.”

“How?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s an easy question Stevie. How?”

“They gave me ‘Cliff Notes’ on everything and everyone I needed to know.” Steve answers and Bucky nods.

“Do you still have them?”

“The files?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?” Steve says and Bucky looks interested.

“Can I see them?”

“Sure. It’d be good to have another source other than just Tony.” Steve says and for a moment he thinks he sees that look on Bucky’s face again before it fades away into nothingness.

“Always good to have multiple sources. Never know what kind of bias and rhetoric you’re taking in if you don’t verify.” He says and it almost sounds like he’s poking at Steve a little with it, but Steve figures he’s reading too far into it and he lets it go.

He gives Bucky the files on a Wednesday, and by Friday Bucky’s all up in arms about them. He practically throws one of the files on the table in front of Nat with a snarl of ‘What the actual fuck is this bullshit?’.

“Tony’s psyche profile.” Nat says calmly when she opens it and looks at the first few pages.

“Bullshit.” Bucky snaps and Steve immediately stands.

“Buck!” He scolds and Bucky turns to him.

“Please tell me that you didn’t take a word of this piece of crap for face value.” He asks, no more like demands from Steve and Steve frowns.

“This is what Nat does Buck. She profiles people.”

“No, she manipulates them and anyone else she can while she’s at it.” Bucky retorts and Steve’s surprised to see that Nat doesn’t even try to defend herself. “A simple google search of Tony Stark will tell you that at minimum ninety percent of this is bullshit and meeting him for ten minutes will tell you the other ten is crap too.”

“Buck…I don’t know what image Tony’s giving you right now, but trust me. That file is true. I’ve known Tony for almost five years. He’s very much the way he’s described in that file.”

“You don’t know a damned thing.” Bucky says, reaching out and snatching the file again before heading over to the fireplace and tossing it in. “Not even worth the paper it’s printed on.” He snaps before he stalks off.

“Wow, I knew that Tony would try to work him over but damn I’ve gotta hand it to him.” Clint says, munching on his cereal. “Bravo. He’s outdone himself. He’s going to have a little Bucky wind up doll singing his praises soon enough.”

That night, Steve doesn’t find sleep as he thinks about what Clint’s said and how Bucky’s been acting. Bucky was always one to stick up for the little dogs. His protective nature being one of the greatest things about him and if Tony knew that he could be portraying himself in such a way as to remind a Bucky that doesn’t fully remember Steve yet of Steve. He could be pretending to be someone, a victim, that he isn’t and Bucky could be picking up on that. Tony’s almost as good an actor as Nat is after all, and since he hasn’t let Steve explain himself yet he could be harboring irrational anger against everything that went down and Bucky is the obvious pathway for that rage.

“So what do you do? Down in Tony’s lab?” Steve asks as casually as he can and Bucky shrugs.

“Mostly I sit in the B.A.R.F. chair and he does whatever it is he needs to do in the background.” Bucky says and Steve gives him a look.

“I thought he was supposed to be helping you?”

“Nah. He’s there in case something goes wrong. He showed me how to control B.A.R.F. back on the first day and put the control in my hand to activate it. He doesn’t like the thought of being the one who decides when it’s time to move on from one memory and into another.” Bucky replies. “For the most part he works on the armor down there or on any of the projects that he has going with the Council.”

“He’s got projects going with the Council? Shouldn’t he be discussing that with all of us?”

“Why?” Bucky asks confused. “It has nothing to do with you.”

“Because the last time Tony just ‘did projects’ behind the Avengers back he created Ultron.” Steve informs him and Bucky gives him a look like he’s an idiot.

“Tony didn’t create Ultron.”

“He did. Don’t believe whatever story he made up afterwards. We were there.” Steve says and Bucky looks like he wants to either sigh or pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“I see. So he just _made up_ the data and the information of the intelligence already existing inside of the stone prior to running tests on it just to cover his ass?”

“There might have been a presence, but it wouldn’t have gotten out without Tony’s help.”

“So he’s the one who brought it online? He went down there and hit the big red button and bam! Ultron?”

“Something like that.” Steve says.

“So Thor’s energy didn’t wake up the entity inside the stone like Vision’s acknowledged?” Bucky challenges. “Vision who I would assume knows more about the stone and all of that then any of us.”

“Even if Thor’s hammer did that, Tony still shouldn’t have been playing around with it.”

“I see. So Dr. Bruce Banner and _Dr._ Tony Stark shouldn’t have touched a potentially hostile entity to figure out what it was, how it worked or anything like that?”

“He wasn’t doing it for the right reasons Buck.”

“And what reasons were those? What were the right reasons Stevie? I’m guessing _your _reasons?”

“What does that mean?” Steve demands and Bucky shrugs.

“Nothing. I’m just seeing a lot of rewritten narrative to hold onto the idea that Tony’s the devil in all of your worldviews regardless of any information that claims otherwise.” Bucky says as he gets up and goes to leave. Steve jumps up too and moves to block him.

“I’m not saying that Tony is the devil Buck.” Steve protests. “I’m just saying that he’s not exactly known for his good choices.”

“Really? And who are you talking to that tells you that? Because the people I’ve talked to paint a different picture, but then I don’t just surround myself with Hydra yes-men.”

“What?” Steve snaps. “I’ve never-”

“Wanda.” Bucky says. “Was fucking Hydra. Fucked over your team. Fucked with their heads like Hydra likes to do. Fucked with Tony’s head, but you don’t care. You don’t seem to give a damn either way. Your precious SHIELD _was_ Hydra. Fury was never in charge, Pierce was. The World Council can pretend that they’re innocent but they green lit every single Hydra mission because secretly they didn’t give a damn about the damage it caused as long as they got something out of it. They were willing to send a nuke into a civilian area. That was without Hydra’s supposed influence. _Tony _had to stop it. Not your precious SHIELD. _Tony_.”

“SHIELD was infiltrated.”

“It’s not infiltration when every single level is infected.” Bucky retorts. “It’s not infiltration when those in power are the other guys. It’s not infiltration when SHIELD was so agreeable with Hydra’s motives and methods that they never noticed a thing for _decades_. When those people are in charge then you’re not dealing with an infiltration, you’re dealing with a merger. And SHIELD and Hydra are _identical_. You just don’t want to see it because it tears down your worldview of being the ‘little guy from Brooklyn who is a good man and only does good things’. How could you acknowledge that you’d been had? That you’d been misled? That those you trusted abused your abilities and your skills and that people got hurt from it?”

“That’s not my fault! I didn’t know! I would have never done it otherwise!”

“So you should get a free pass? Because you were misled?”

“Yes!”

“Then why don’t you give Tony one?” Bucky fires back before he pushes past Steve. “Look up Obadiah Stane the next time you want to paint Tony as some warmongering war-profiteer who doesn’t give a damn about who he hurts.”

Steve does of course, and what he gets back from the search is horrifying. Stane was Howard’s business partner who inherited guardianship over Tony when they died. He was found out to have been dealing under the table and was the one who paid to have Tony killed. The same thing that created Iron Man only to try and kill Tony again at a later time after trying to mark him as unstable and take the company from him. Steve had never heard anything of Stane before. He thinks he saw a line in Tony’s file about how Stane was _his_ business partner, but Steve didn’t know that he was inherited from Howard and that the man was practically family before he tried to kill Tony.

_“Why wasn’t there anything about Stane in Tony’s file?” Steve asks Nat later and Nat shrugs. _

_“Because the file wasn’t on Stane. It was on Tony.” She answers and Steve isn’t sure how that information settles with him. The curiosity about the file leads Steve to finally look into the Stark Expo and the information that he gets paints an entirely different picture than the one the file does. In the file, Tony’s ego and arrogance led to Vanko attacking him and Tony’s erratic behavior put dozens of lives in jeopardy at his party. The information from outside sources though paints a picture of Howard and Howard’s time after Steve when he stole designs and destroyed Vanko’s life. It tells the story of severe palladium poisoning which Steve had never heard of and of a man who even with those limitations created a new element and saved an entire city from Justin Hammer’s poor business partner choices. In one of the interviews Tony slips up and confesses that he had days to live. Mere days. Steve can’t even imagine celebrating a birthday knowing that it’s your last with people who don’t know you’re dying in a few short days. _

“Is there any way you could convince Tony to talk to me?” Steve asks the next time he sees Bucky at dinner and Bucky snorts.

“Sorry punk. No way in hell.” Bucky says and Steve frowns at him. He hadn’t actually thought that Bucky would tell him no.

“I need to talk to him. To apologize for some things.”

“He doesn’t want to see you Steve.” Bucky says. “Leave it at that.”

“We need to talk.”

“No, you need to respect his fucking boundaries.” Bucky retorts. “If he doesn’t want to talk to you, then you _respect_ that.”

“Oh no. Poor little snowflake Stark. All butt hurt in his little lab with no-” Clint starts to say some sort of insult against Tony and Steve doesn’t even see Bucky move before the man puts his hand on the back of Clint’s head and smacks his forehead down onto the table. It makes everyone jump and yell for a few minutes and Steve’s not sure how he feels about Bucky just sitting there and continuing to eat his corn flakes as Clint’s broken nose bleeds everywhere.

“You shouldn’t have done that to Clint.” Steve tries to tell him after Bucky manages to convince the Accords Council that it was just a Winter Soldier slip up and that it wouldn’t happen again unless provoked like Clint was doing.

“Would you have preferred that I grab him by his throat and dangle him around for a few minutes?” Bucky asks and Steve looks at him aghast.

“What? No Buck!”

“Oh I see. So that’s only an okay method when dealing with Tony. Got it.” He says and Steve goes to argue against it but Bucky cuts him off. “FRIDAY, play the lab video from after the first Ultron attack in the Tower.” Steve watches as FRIDAY pulls up the video of Thor storming across the floor and picking Tony up. Tony doesn’t fight back, and none of them seem to step forward to help him. That’s odd, that’s not how Steve remembers that day. Actually…now that he thinks about it, he’s never really put much stock in that moment. “See, shit like this makes me wonder if that little punk from Brooklyn who supposedly fought for everyone being bullied is still in there – or if he ever was.” Bucky says before he gets up and walks away. The video footage unnerves Steve for a bit. He’d never thought that they’d done anything like that before, but there it is, in full color being helpfully replayed by FRIDAY on any screen in his immediate area when he’s alone and he feels like FRIDAY’s trying to make a point. He’s not sure what it is, but it’s certainly something.

Tony finally crosses Steve’s path again a short while later, but he only does it for a second as he rushes past him holding an arm that he brandishes at Bucky with extreme glee.

“It’s finished!” He says with a smirk. There’s something a thousand times more lighthearted on his face and in his body language then Steve thinks he’s seen in a long time. “And it has all of the requests that you made.”

“All of them?”

“Yup.”

“Even the-”

“Hey, if you want to get in touch with your inner swiss army knife, then who am I to stand in the way.” Tony says with a laugh. He lets Bucky hold the arm. “Wanna go put it on Soldier?”

“Hell yeah.” Bucky says with a return grin and Steve steps forward to say something only to be cut off by Tony.

“Sorry Rogers, don’t have the time. Gotta get this on and then run.” He says as he moves past him and the two of them get into the elevator and disappear. Bucky returns later with a new arm and Steve’s trying to be happy for him but he feels like he’s losing his best friend. That feeling is solidified a few days later when they’re all called on mission and Tony takes a hit for Steve, getting thrown through two or three brick walls before Steve and Bucky can put the man down. Bucky fusses over Tony for a bit in the plane, and Steve’s surprised that Tony’s taking the plane and not just flying back to the Compound like he usually does. It was always infrequent even in the old days for Tony to ride with them on the plane, even more so after Wanda joined them.

Steve learns why at the Compound’s medical facility where Bucky fusses over Tony like a mother hen until the billionaire takes off the armor to reveal that even with all that padding there’s still just a very fleshy human man inside of there who can get very, very injured. It’s crazy to see. Steve had always thought Tony invincible inside the armor and now he wonders how many times should they have checked on the brunet after a mission to see if he was hurt.

“Tony…I know that I’m the last person you want to talk to-”

“You’re not.” Tony interrupts, not looking up from his tablet as he sits in the medical bed. “Not even close to top ten.”

“Then why are you avoiding me?”

“Because we have nothing to talk about.” Tony replies. “You ended the conversation pretty well when you left me to die in a Siberian Hydra base.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“Oh? Interesting. Pray tell, what happened then? Give me the ‘Steve Rogers Retelling’.” Tony says, finally looking up at him.

“You attacked us.”

“Yup.”

“I did what I had to do.”

“Sure.” Tony agrees. “But what about _after_ you’d done what you ‘had to do’? Why’d you _leave_? Leave without signaling for help or checking to see if I was going to be okay?”

“You were fine Tony.”

“You’re wrong.” Tony says, looking back down at his tablet. “Seventeen hours in Cho’s cradle and a rebuilt sternum and collar bone from Extremis says you’re wrong. And that’s ignoring the nerve damage that had to be repaired from prolonged exposure to subzero temperatures in a _metal suit_.” Steve recoils a little at that information and Tony doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. “So go fuck yourself Rogers. I’m not interested in whatever you have to say when anyone else would have died with what you did. You don’t get to claim my resources and my stubbornness in surviving as proof of your innocence.” Tony reaches over and hits a button next to his bed and a nurse comes in, shooing Steve out of the area saying that he’s ‘upsetting the patient’.

What about how Tony’s upsetting him? Why is no one caring about that?

Tony doesn’t come out of the suit during missions after that, and Steve’s only glimpses of him are at events over the television. He’s caught off guard when he sees Bucky at an event or two next to the billionaire and Bucky just shrugs when Steve confronts him and says ‘I got an invitation’, like that explains or justifies everything. The arrival of more powered individuals seems to create an even bigger pond for Tony to maintain an existence on the other side of it. He works with the Fantastic Four, and he works with the Defenders, he even works with the Guardians of the Galaxy one time, heading up into space with them in order to stave off some plan of this ‘Thanos’ character.

That doesn’t get to Steve as much as the knowledge that Tony’s been keeping in contact with Bucky every day, even when off planet. Bucky shrugs when Steve asks about it and refuses to talk about Tony to him. Calls it a conflict of interests to Steve’s face when Steve asks why.

_“How is it a conflict of interests?” _

_“Because you’re both my friends and you’re not each other’s friend.” _

_“I’m Tony’s friend.” Steve says and Bucky actually lets out a laugh at that. “I’m not joking Buck.” _

_“Stevie, I pray you’re joking because if you’re not then that’s just plain terrifying.” _

Natasha gets replaced by another SHIELD spy when information gets out that she’s been keeping Fury and the remnants of SHIELD involved in what the Avengers are doing, against her contract with the Accords. Bobbi’s nice and all, but she seems uninterested in getting to really know Steve or his group and Steve misses Nat almost immediately. Wanda gets sent off to some ‘magic school’ with someone named Stephen Strange only for it to come back that she got her powers sealed after misusing them at the magic compound. Ross and the others breathe a sigh of relief at that and Steve realizes what’s happening. They’re replacing them slowly but surely, getting rid of them one at a time so that people don’t realize what’s happening. Steve wonders who they’re going to get to replace him and then the answer hits him like a brick to the face when he sees the next ‘Avenger’ outing that he wasn’t tapped for.

The Winter Soldier and Iron Man take to the field like it’s a dance, moving and saving people while news casters attempt to catch some of their bantering on tape. Bucky Barnes standing alongside Tony Stark at the next Avengers gala just cements the new ‘power couple’. People eat up the new friendship between the two. How after everything done to them both, and things done against each other at the will of others – they’ve found a way to make themselves stronger for it.

That should be Steve and Tony like it was once upon a time, but now it’s a different Brooklyn boy with the super soldier serum. Its someone else who stands beside Tony when they bring in new arrivals and who shake Bucky’s metal hand like the star on it doesn’t tell of darker times.

Laura leaving Clint spikes a rage episode from the archer that ends up with him expelled from the Avengers and pending attempted assault charges on Tony. Steve’s still trying to figure out why Clint even went after the other man, but he was careless and FRIDAY recorded it all. Sam ends up leaving to go work under Wasp and with Ant-Man, and Steve’s not surprised because he knows those two had a silly friendship that they’d created in their interactions with each other. It’s why Steve sent Sam to bring in the other man in the first place. Steve himself gets transferred to another team – since he no longer has a team of his own to speak of – and while he doesn’t mind Carol, he does think that everything should have worked out differently. The Avengers should still all be here, with Bucky and Tony at his side helping him defend the earth, instead Bucky and Tony stand side by side on their own squad while Steve takes orders from someone else.

It’s not at all what he expected when he returned, and he wishes he could do it all over again. Do it right.

**Author's Note:**

> Please no comments of a critiquing or negative nature. Thank you for understanding.


End file.
